DIY: Holiday Garlands and Tassels!

Remember when we made that awesomely versatile shirt? Well, thanks to My Own Fringemaker I have been busy making more awesome things out of yarn for the holiday season. I seriously love this contraption, as it allows me to make fringe, tassels, pom-poms, and so much more out of yarn and ribbons you already have around the house. If you want some ideas for using fringe and such check out my pinterest board here.

For my first holiday decoration idea, I tied on my yarn and wrapped at about 1 inch apart (I did 2 at once on the fringemaker). The Fringemaker allows you to just hold the yarn ball, and then you twist the crank really fast and it winds it all on there in seconds! I also made several pom-poms at once on it and then put the two together to make a garland you could hang on your wall or Christmas tree.

I also made a large tassel out of my twisted strands and pom-poms (I really really love pom-poms, and not just cause they are trendy, but I always have! I even made a pom-pom scarf my freshman year of college--13 yrs ago).

Here is my tassel hanging proudly with my reindeer garland and wood flag bunting (made from balsa wood and twine). I love it!

pom-poms and mis-matched shapes!

I am on a ROLL! How many posts have I done this week? THREE!! And this is the FOURTH! woohoo! Hopefully people are still reading my blog, and not coming here solely from pinterest... Though I am greatful to all those who have pinned my blog and keep people reading it! One day I will decide to make more money off this thing using those stats. Speaking of, any of you want an ad on my blog? I'm thinking $10/month same size as those on the right. I get usually 11,000 hits/month!

Email me if you are interested. Now's the time, its the holidays!

Okay, on to today's little inspiration station.
Pom-poms and such.

 The jumper. It was a hand-me down of course, and so I was excited to re-vamp it. I bought some strung pom-poms at Jo Ann's and just pinned and sewed them straight to the hem of the jumper. Done.

The leggings I spotted on Pinterest and knew immediately that I had to make some knock-offs! She has worn them for three days now bc I think they look cute with everything.

The top, which you can't really see, is just a plain shirt that I sewed a cut-in-half doily onto the shoulders of.

The shoes, again can be found here (tutorial).

And there you have it. Living vicariously through my children with their wardrobe. While they still let me!

Pimp your Cord

All links and more ideas can be found here! I have at least 10 projects in the works, and another FAB sale I am preparing for so this might not be done soon, but it WILL be done!

HOW TO WRAP YOUR CORD: when I wrapped my cord,  I just got out a bunch of yarn colors that I liked and would wrap them around the cord. In order to switch to the next color, I would just overlap the next color over top of the previous one about 1 inch. At the very end I hot glued the piece down! done. And it really doesn't take as long as you think. Like maybe one or two movies worth?

Valentine's Day Headband GIVEAWAY!!!

The perfect accessory to wear in February  and all year long! I will be giving away one headband, and the winner can pick either the Fascinator (that's the large one) or the classic felt feather (the smaller one)!

How do you enter??? Just leave a comment!

IF YOU WANT TO ENTER MORE THAN ONCE... 

"Pin it!" If you pin this giveaway on your pinterest and tag it "blue-eyed freckle giveaway" (so I can find it) or tag me if we are friends, then you can have an extra entry!

OR if you pin a tutorial or image from my blog (past "pins" aren't eligible) you can enter another time for each pin.

IMPORTANT: please leave a separate comment for each entry so you have multiple times to win. Inlcude your email address and your pinterest link if applicable.

ENDS SUNDAY, JANUARY 22, 2012 at 11:59 pm EST

a kitchenette for my girls

 

 

I made my girls (though it was given to Olivia for Christmas I will MAKE her share it with Amélie when the time comes!) a little kitchenette. You've seen them all over pinterest, and now you've seen one on here. Only mine is missing the faucet. and an oven handle.

I bought this scrappy weird wood thing for $2 back in May with the intentions of making it into a kitchen and never got a chance. Next thing I know it is Christmas eve-eve and I REALLY wanted to do it, but I am swamped with the fab thing. So I got my husband to do the dirty work (the  spray-painting and cutting) and on Christmas eve I painted all the details and sewed the curtains. Done. well minus the faucet (and the oven handle, but my husband put the oven door on upside down so.....). I need to buy the letter "J" at the craft store and make it the faucet (saw it on another one).

The best thing about this baby is that I only spent $2.25 out of pocket! EVERYTHING else I scavanged from various places.

Details:
-little wooden "eggs" from the craft store (that I happened to have) for knobs
-old wooden drawer knobs for the "temperature" knobs
-used contact paper to cut circles out of, cover the stove-top and then spray the red burners on (same with all other detailing)

-the bottom part had a big space and no sides, so I sewed curtains and then attached them with velcro. sticky velcro on the wood part (underneath) and sew-able velcro on the the fabric.

**and thanks to my father-in-law who cut out the burners and the hole for the sink.
 and to my parents for their white spray paint!

New Traditions

This is the first Christmas that we have a daughter who is aware of it being Christmas! I am so excited to start family traditions, borrowing some from my own childhood. My parents always did a great job at creating fun traditions for all of the holidays and I want that for my own daughters.

So I saw the above photo on Pinterest (via Poppytalk) and thought it would be a fun one to incorporate on "St. Nick's." I basically just went to the dollar store, got a few candies and trinkets and wrapped them in crepe paper (from the dollar tree as well), glued the end down and added some scraps from my headbands!  The fun thing about these balls (a mexican tradition I believe it said) as that you find more prizes as you unwrap them, which kids love of course.

I stuffed the Christmas ball into the sock she left out on the eve of St.Nick's as well as a few other fun things.

(pictured above with the ball are the cinnamon dough ornaments that I made with my mom. So fun and easy! Olivia thought they were cookies, thus the decapitated one on the bottom right:))

I love/hate pinterest

This DRIVES ME BANANAS. Back in March, when I thought I was buying that house which had all those tans walls, I had the idea to use white contact paper and PAINT designs on it for the baby's room. I had painted these large, abstract flowers using house paint and acrylic paint, and then cut them out to apply to the walls (mine were more like large, long decals). Well, we didn't move into that house, and the apartment we DID move into had/has the horrible textured walls that contact paper won't stick to. So I threw them all away.

Fast Forward to this morning when I saw the above image on pinterest. Oh what a great idea, painting on contact paper. As seen on Apartment Therapy and now going to be all. over. pinterest! I know this shouldn't get to me, and there are rarely ever any completely original ideas (my art teachers used to always emphasize this), but still. I want my blog to bring you fresh, new ideas and things you haven't seen done a bazillion times! And now, because of good ol' pinterest (which I really do love most of the time), ideas like this (and many others believe me) are no longer new. So boo. If I do do it for a future apartment I'll let you know:(

Does this happen to any of you??!!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

 my only halloween decorations... (besides a little skull banner I made and hung elsewhere and my pumpkins).  And now a few photos from our previous halloween festivities!

 may I present to you.... QUETZALCOATL!!! part serpent... part bird! I made the wings as inspired by this on pinterest (one of the first things I ever pinned 8 months ago!!). But I made a few adjustments to make them easier to keep on a 2 yr old for long periods of time (and boy am I glad I did). More on that in a sec.

 blurry face but couldn't resist the cuteness of her stance. Too bad she totally wiped off the feathery face make-up I did. It ended up just looking like a weird mess.

 I lined the inside with some vintage chartreuse sheet fabric

 not that great of a shot of them spread open, but I couldn't get her to grasp the concept of turning around and spreading them so that she wasn't looking at me....

 Amélie wore the flapper dress I made for Olivia 2 yrs ago. She was a little tired at our trunk or treat party thus the glazed over look in her eyes.

With my mom at the party. I was Bjork... or inspired by Bjork since I didn't actually look at the photo when I made my costume or put on my make-up. For some reason I thought I knew what it looked like, but mine is clearly not the same, so we are going to just say I was inspired by her. I love any excuse to just wear lots of colors and put on something weird. Honestly I wish I could just wear get-ups like this in my normal life.

dance dance tu tu

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Olivia started her first creative dance (ballet and tap) class today.  I really want/need to make her a little tutu to wear. Today I copped out and sent her in a little tutu-ish skirt from the Gap... But I have big plans. Okay I have no plans. I just know I need to make her something that is hopefully somewhere in the vicinity of the these beauties (found via this lady) Now where to find the time....
(and to all you bloggers out there with an infant and a toddler who have a blog and a shop and are STILL FINDING TIME TO BLOG.... how in the hello! are you doing it???!!!)

and when I find that time (is it in a pot at the end of a rainbow?) I will surely be making one for me inspired by this beaut. And I'll stand up against a pale wall with my new glasses on and a cardigan buttoned up backwards.  I will definitely be sucking in my stomach.

off topic, but I really want to copy this cool dress for either the girls, or for me.... bye bye for now!

Let's Talk Food

It all started here. On January 29, 2010 I bought myself a Blendtec Blender and opened my world to the idea of drinking spinach. I was an avid green smoothie drinker for a long time (okay like 10 months) until.... I got pregnant. I couldn't even stomach the idea of drinking spinach even though I knew you couldn't taste it! Sad. Then my friend Lesley decided to change the way SHE ate, and taught everyone hew new ways on her blog. This made me really want to revamp the way I ate again (I was raised on the healthiest of foods growing up thanks to my mom, but I had veered off the straight and narrow:). But it was hard being on such a tight budget and having a slightly resistant husband (though I must say he is open-minded to most of it). So I decided to put it off again.

Then I had this little cutie pie (8 1/2 wks ago!) and she didn't seem to like the dairy (non-stop farting among other things!!!). So I went off of it (mother of the year right here<-----). All of the sudden everything I wanted had cheese or cream in it! yikes. So I did some research which turned into my new addiction---researching healthy vegan (vegan because their recipes are dairy-free) cheeses, desserts, ice-creams, etc.

And now I am in the process of totally re-doing the way I feed my family, because the more you read the harder it is to keep on eating the same way you always have.  For instance, the "Vegetables" side of my grocery list is now jam-packed. The rest of it is pretty bare and mostly just has whole foods like nuts, dates, raw honey, agave, chia seeds, spelt flour, etc.  I can't even believe it when I look at my list!

My new goal is to eat around 50-60% raw foods per day, and the rest all whole foods. I am definitely not going to be crazy about it all though. I think it is good to have moderation and to not cut yourself off from others because of your diet, when it can be helped. We are only going to eat humanely-raised meat/animals, and only 1-2 times per week (which really helps with our budget!). Anyway, sorry if I am rambling about health food on an art/craft/design blog....but:

Here are a few of my new favorite tried and loved recipes from my new favorite websites!

 flourless choc. chip cookies (gluten and dairy free naturally!)

 choc. chip cookie dough babies (like lara bars)

Deep dish cookie pie 

All from chocolate-covered katie (she has tons of super easy, yummy healthy desserts. This is where I started and I have loved every single thing I've made from her website.)

vegan mac and cheese. YUM!!!!

I think this is one of my favorites to peruse and read. Kind of a cheesy name ("Oh She Glows") but greaaat recipes. These pb crunch balls taste like butterfingers. But they are healthy and vegan!

and carrot cake oatmeal!

Carrot cake smoothie (alternative to greens---carrots!) from RAWxy.

Gorgeous blog and delicious recipes. Vegan Tacos (the "meat" is made of walnuts ground up with other things). She is good at explaining all the nutrition behind different foods, esp superfoods. Its very educational and makes you WANT to eat all these healthy things! "My New Roots"--she also writes a recipe on mondays for Martha Stewart (Whole Living I think?) but I've never looked at it.

And lastly, Roost. (Cashew Brioche). This is maybe the most gorgeous of all the food blogs. It isn't vegan, but it is based off of some crazy (SCD) diet she and her husband have been following to get rid of the symptoms of Crohn's disease. He is now off medications he has been on for 10 yrs. Anyway, its gluten free, mostly grain free, mostly (not all) dairy free, etc. They use nuts to make up their flours, and let me tell you the desserts on this site look spectacular. I can't wait to make one of them!

And are you wondering how I've felt about not eating any cheese, milk, or my beloved Blue Bell Ice Cream (which I had been eating at least 2x a day since the middle of my pregnancy)??? I feel GREAT! I haven't been sneezing or getting any sinus infections like all the rest of my allergy-plagued friends (I normally get them too). I don't feel bloated or in any pain after I eat (I think I have always had a little issue with dairy, but I didn't really care b/c I wanted to eat it). And I don't even MISS IT!!!!  There are so many fantastic alternatives and I am having fun learning how to make "dairy" out of things like nuts.

Okay hope I haven't bored you all to death. But seriously, even if you aren't interested in changing your diet, try some of these recipes out. They are good! And if you want more ideas for healthy recipes, follow my food board on pinterest!

Oh and do any of you have healthy suggestions or links to recipes you love? Leave a comment!

Throwing a party anytime soon?

I am in charge of an interest group at my church where each month we get together and learn about a different topic (I find someone who is talented in that subject area, or knows alot about it to teach us).

This month we are learning about planning a great party (kids, showers, etc), so since it was on my mind I thought I would do a post of inspiring party decor! Enjoy:)

images from my pinterest boards

 

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I know big tissue paper poufs are all the party rage right now, and I should be over them, but I thought these two clusters kind of went beyond the norm. I love the contrasting textures in the first image.

 

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a great alternative to the poufs!

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I love how simple these would be to make!

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for a 50th.... or you could do it for any birthday (or anniversary)!

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cute for a little girl's party

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cute wrapping with cupcake liners!

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what to wear to your party or for a fun photobooth (with props)

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or wear confetti, pom-poms and flowers!

And you can try out my birthday hat tutorial from Olivia's "O" themed first birthday party!